LOS ANGELES () — Gusty winds swept through Southern California on Thursday, but a potentially stronger Santa Ana wind event is possible starting as early as Friday morning.
Although this wind event is not elevating the risk of fires, there are other concerns following recent storms.
“We’re more concerned about wires down, trees falling over because we know those root systems are still pretty saturated with water,” said Los Angeles Fire Chief Jaime Moore.
Southern California Edison is monitoring the wind event, which the utility company said could pose an outage risk. The utility does not plan on shutting down power for customers.
“At this time, public safety power shutoffs are not planned because there’s enough moisture in the vegetation on the ground,” Jeff Monford with Southern California Edison said.
On Friday, an offshore flow will trigger a strong Santa Ana wind event that is expected to continue into the weekend, with Saturday likely to see the most potent gusts.
“The most likely outcome in terms of wind speeds are expected to be 20-30 mph with gusts to 35-55 mph,” according to the NWS. “Isolated gusts to 55-65 mph are likely, especially across higher terrain. One of the limiting/driving factors in the peak wind speeds is the positioning of the cutoff low. If the upper level wind support is favorable (magnitude and direction), there is a potential for strong and damaging winds of 25-40 mph with gusts of 60-75 mph, with highest chances across the mountains.”
The Santa Ana event is expected to last into Sunday.
City News Service contributed to this report.
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